Parking environments for motor vehicles are, in particular, known as parking garages and as parking lots comprising several parking spaces for motor vehicles. In the past, the demand for being able to improve the navigation in such parking environments has increased more and more. Systems were thus, for example, proposed in which a motor vehicle is to be assigned to a parking space in the parking garage automatically, wherein appropriate sensors are arranged for this purpose on the parking spaces, via which sensors it can be determined whether a parking space is occupied or not. Other proposals provide that via a central computing unit of the parking environment, with which the motor vehicle establishes a communication link, such as a WLAN connection or a GSM connection, via motor-vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, a map data set of the parking environment is transmitted to the motor vehicle, wherein the map data set can be used in a navigation system of the motor vehicle in order to guide the driver through the parking environment to the parking space. Based on the specification of the destination parking space, the internal navigation system of the motor vehicle thus calculates, using the map data set, a route that leads the motor vehicle to the destination parking space, wherein the destination parking space can be transmitted together with the map data set.
The determination of such map data sets by measurements, from construction plans, and/or at least partially manually is already known in the prior art. In order to bring about improvements in this respect, it was proposed to provide additional sensors in the parking environment, which sensors can detect newly appearing or disappearing obstacles and enter them accordingly into the map data set so that the latter can be kept current dynamically. In this way, it is also possible to react to changes occurring dynamically in the navigability of the parking environment. In this context, it was also proposed to use sensor data or general environmental data of the motor vehicles operating in the parking environment, or even of the motor vehicles parked in the parking environment, in order to update the map data set and to thus always provide the ideal basis for the route planning for the motor vehicles.
If each motor vehicle currently calculates for itself a route to be traveled to the destination parking space, it can only take into consideration in the process other motor vehicles operating in the parking environment within its own environmental detection capabilities, which can lead to hindrances, time delays, or even the impossibility of proceeding further. This is particularly critical with respect to fully automated parking processes in the parking environment, in which vehicle systems designed for the fully automatic guidance of the motor vehicle can, for example, be used, which systems are, however, also provided with only limited information about the traffic situation in the parking environment.